A motorcade led the funeral procession for
Corporal Matt Wallace at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. Six uniformed
men carried Wallace's black coffin to a gravesite in Section 60, where
service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest.

During the service, Army chaplain Lane Creamer
spoke solemnly of sacrifice: "For the soldier, it is always duty, honor,
country." Soldiers then fired a three-volley salute while a bugler stood
among the rows of white headstones and played taps.

Keith
Wallace, right, at the funeral for his son Army Cpl. Matt Wallace, who
died July 21 after
an explosion in Baghdad

It was a fitting end for a man who wanted nothing
more than to be a "soldier man" his whole life.

Wallace, 22, of St. Mary's County, died July
21, 2006, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany of burns sustained
when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad
on July 16, 2006.

As a child growing up in St. Mary's County,
Wallace played with empty toilet paper rolls and clothes hangers, pretending
they were toy guns. Family members said he went through a "self-discovery
phase" and dropped out of Great Mills High School after his sophomore year.
In 2001, he earned a General Educational Development diploma, and he joined
the Army in 2004.

Wallace was 5 feet 10 inches tall and 135 pounds
of "pure muscle," his sister Abigail said. He played soccer and dabbled
in karate. In Iraq, he trained on every weapons system possible, becoming
a highly skilled soldier, she said.

Wallace's mother, Mary, said he sounded weary
the last time they spoke on the phone. "They were just working and working
with little relief," she said. But that was where he wanted to be, she
added, her voice perking up. "He felt like he was doing what God thought
he should do."

Wallace is also survived by his father, Keith,
and siblings Jessica and Micah.

A light breeze blew through the cemetery about
3 p.m. yesterday when mourners gathered at a gravesite next to Wallace's
to honor Marine Lance Corporal Geofrey Robert Cayer.
The crowd included U.S. Senators John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Edward M.
Kennedy (D-Mass.), who went to pay respects to the man from Fitchburg,
Massachusetts. Military officials said Cayer, 20, died July 18,2006, in
a nonhostile incident in Iraq's Anbar province. He was assigned to the
3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary
Force at Camp Pendleton, California.

Cayer graduated from Fitchburg High School
in 2004, where he played football and tennis. Principal Richard Masciarelli
remembered him as focused and quiet. But when Cayer returned to visit the
school after basic training, he appeared to be a different person, Masciarelli
said. "He had really come into his own and was confident in himself as
a young man," he said.

Friends recalled Cayer as a great observer
with a dry wit. "He always found humor in the oddest places," said Chris
LeBlanc, a family friend. "He would watch everything going on, and just
when you were least expecting it, he'd say something funny."

Those who knew Cayer spoke of a characteristic
resolve. "He was there to do a job, and he took it very seriously," LeBlanc
said. "He was so happy to be a Marine."

Cayer was scheduled to return from Iraq this
month, according to news reports.

When Cayer's service ended, Kerry and Kennedy
offered condolences to his parents, Joan and Robert, and siblings, Charles,
Alex and Abbigail.

Kerry placed a bouquet of white flowers on
Cayer's coffin and made the sign of the cross before walking back to his
car, past the long rows of tombstones at Section 60.

Wallace and Cayer are the 254th and 255th service
members killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom to be buried at Arlington.

24 December 2007By: Laura DuffyCourtesy of the Examiner This is part of an occasional series
of letters and stories about Maryland soldiers who have died in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Even as a boy, Matthew P. Wallace never knew
what it was like to give up.

“He had a favorite pair of cowboy boots,” Mary
Wallace said. “And he could never put them on the correct feet. But he
kept on trying.”

That kind of determination — and the fact that
he needed to be where the action was — drove the Lexington Park Army corporal
to press his commanding officers for more responsibility — as a top gunman.
They hesitated; Wallace was top-notch at both his jobs — as a technical
operator and as his command sergeant's driver. But his persistence paid
off.

But after only a few months on the front
lines in Iraq, the 22-year-old fell victim to a roadside bomb as his convoy
was on a combat mission in Baghdad.

“He suffered horrible burns over 85 percent
of his body,” his mother said.

The Wallaces learned about their son’s condition
on July 16, 2006 while vacationing in North Carolina.

“I’m a nurse,” said Mary Wallace, who works
at St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown. “My heart was hopeful, but in my
mind I knew his chances [of survival] were slim.”

Five days after being wounded, Wallace, with
his family beside him, died in a hospital in Germany.

“He wasn’t blind to what he was getting involved
with,” his mother said. “He was committed to this cause, and Matthew made
this decision on his own.”

When Wallace enlisted in the Army, he left
behind not only his family, but also his longtime best friend, Matthew
Korade. They met at church when they were only 4 years old.

“We hated each other at first because we had
the same name,” Korade said. “But he became my best friend. Whenever I
had a problem, we’d just sit at the end of his driveway and talk. Now I’m
alone.”

Korade had purchased tickets to a concert by
the hard-rock band Tool, ready to surprise his best buddy on Wallace’s
return. Instead, Korade went to Arlington National Cemetery, where Wallace
is buried, and laid the tickets on his grave.

Matthew P. Wallace’s mother, Mary, wrote this
article after seeing a young Marine and his boy saluting at her son’s grave
in Arlington. It is featured on a Web site — The Fellowship of the Devastated
— Mary created after losing her son. What follows is an edited excerpt.

It is easy to tell the difference. Some are
there aimlessly walking, taking in the sites, seeing the National Treasures
for perhaps the first time. They chat and laugh. Some with cameras snap
self-portraits and pictures of loved ones near scenes made famous in movies
and documentaries.

Then, there are those who wear the expressions
of family members gathered outside an intensive care unit, waiting for
the inevitable news. “Will I cry this time?” They enter from the road only
to notice that it doesn’t look the same since they were there last. There
are more! “Oh my God, there’s a whole new row! How is this possible? It
just hasn’t been that long.” It’s true though. The latest additions are
still missing markers and sod. Yet, there they are. On their knees weeping
are the newest members of “The Fellowship of the Devastated.”

The newly initiated elicit pity from somewhere
in the human soul bypassing even one’s own pain. They are still in the
throes of shock, denial and devastation. I hugged a mom ... She is relieved
to find out six months into the grieving process, it is still normal to
stare at your computer at work and be unable to remember what you were
supposed to be doing.

[An] Air Force officer with his wife and two
small children brought home our nation’s promise to never forget. As he
passed by gravestones, his 4-year-old dressed in camo and combat boots
would lay a red rose at the headstone of the fallen. Then together, father
and son would give a long and heartfelt salute of gratitude. As they laid
the rose and saluted my son, the tears began to fall. In the gentle spirited
nature of a well-seasoned officer, he wiped my tear with his thumb and
thanked me for my sacrifice for his children.

No, Memorial Day will never again be an extra
day off to go to the beach. As we gather in Arlington’s Section 60 to remember
our babies, hold each other and cry once more, it will mark the annual
meeting of “The
Fellowship of the Devastated.”
Posted:
3 August 2006 Updated: 21 August 2006 Updated: 22 September 2006 Updated:
28 December 2007 Updated: 1 July 2008